News Archives for June 2011

LG is known as a manufacturer of some of the best flat-screen TVs and monitors. The company is displaying its new V300 all-in-one system at Computex this week. The high-end configuration comes packed with a second-generation Core i7 CPU, AMD Radeon 6650M dedicated graphics, 750GB worth of storage, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and a Blu-ray player to watch those high-def movies - all in just a 1.8 inch thick frame. The 23-inch monitor offers a multitouch screen and 3D with the help from the film-type patterned retarder panel and polarized glasses. Looks like a great idea for saving space while packing some punch. The V300 will first be launched in Korea, followed by Europe, the Middle East and Asia. There's no word whether the AIO will hit USA store shelves.

Computex 2011 is under way in Taipei, Taiwan this week and we have some news coverage regarding Lucid and its Virtu suite of technologies. We also have a couple of Corsair products in our roundup with reviews on the Obsidian 650D computer case and the SP2200 2.1 Speaker System. We also have another review on the Gigabyte GTX 560 OC that offers solid gaming performance at an affordable price and very low sound levels.

At least in the United States, more and more of what we use and surrounds us is going “green.” Here at Overclockers Club we may be more inclined to purchase the higher efficiency PSU or the more efficient graphics card not only to help the environment but also to help our wallets because less heat means less power and, therefore, less to pay the electric company. Researchers at the University of Washington are looking to make our computers and other technology greener, but not exclusively with new hardware.

With their new system, EnergJ, energy consumption has been shown to drop by as much as 50% in simulations. How can this be accomplished with only 1s and 0s, you ask? By allowing errors in the bytes. Not all of the data our computers, servers, phones, etc. use need to be exact; much can be approximate. For example, streaming audio or video will not suffer from a few errors. Loosen tolerances and drop the voltages on some of your transistors and there you have it, a way to help the environment!

This system would be most beneficial when coupled with new hardware featuring transistors meant for a lower voltage which could allow for a 90% drop in power used. Just a software only implementation, by rounding values off or skipping accuracy checks, could reduce power usage by 30-50%.

EnergJ is written in Java and the researchers hope to have it released as an open-source tool this summer.

When prototyping something, developers will occasionally enter into a room with between three and six projection surfaces to observe their work in its natural surroundings, as a virtual environment. Called the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, or CAVE, this system allows for changes to be made to the virtual prototype immediately. As cool as that may seem, there are three drawbacks to the CAVE system. One is the size of the rear-projection systems employed. Another is it is not modular. You cannot just move a screen to the floor or to a table when you need it. Finally, the CAVE is not cheap.

Enter the FRAVE, or Flexible Reconfigurable Cave, a flexible virtual reality system developed at Technische Universitaet Muenchen. By utilizing 3D plasma screens with a resolution of 1920x1080 each, the images can be moved around much more easily thanks to their smaller size. Utilizing a tracking system, the images shown will be updated as a screen is moved, to remain a window to the virutal world and not just a picture of it. That settles two of the three issues, how about the third, cost? All of the components of this system are end user devices. What are these cheaper end user ingredients?

When Batman: Arkham City was first announced, we knew Catwoman would play a major role. It wasn't until today that we learned just how big of a role she would play. GameSpot got a sneak peak at what Warner Brothers Interactive and Rocksteady will be showcasing at E3 next week, with the big unveil being that Catwoman will be a playable character! Rocksteady's Dax Ginn told GameSpot that the Catwoman narrative will account for only 10% of the main storyline, but you can level her up (so you can upgrade moves and gadgets), take on side missions, and use her to collect some Riddler trophies that only she'll be able to access.

Most importantly, playing as Catwoman will feel like a unique experience - the team didn't want players to simply feel like they were controlling a reskinned Batman. She's quicker and lighter on her feet, has her own special moves and gadgets, and because she lacks a cape and grapple, takes a more physical approach to traversing the city, using parkour moves, her whip, and even climbing on ceilings for stealth. In addition, whereas Batman has his detective vision, Catwoman will have thief vision. Engaging thief vision will highlight what you need to steal, as well as relevant points that will help you steal it.

It may be over four months until we get to play as the beloved feline, but in the mean time, you can enjoy this Catwoman Trailer below, highlighting some of what you can expect with her as a playable character.

I'm sure by now you've all heard about the Mac Defender "virus" that is hitting Mac users. Mac Defender poses as an antivirus program and then once you download it, you get bombarded with spam. The reason for that is because Mac Defender isn't an antivirus program but rather a nasty bit of malware only targeting Macs. People have complained to Apple about it, and now, it seems Apple is finally doing something about it. When OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard launched, Apple saw fit to grace it with a quarantine program that works much like an antivirus program on a Windows computer. Now, Apple is updating it with daily background processes, so you no longer have to wait for Apple to roll out a new security update to be protected. Apple is aiming this feature primarily at Mac Defender, but it is also a precautionary measure in case more malware starts hitting Macs.

Intel has expanded its Visual Life campaign by building a museum, but you won’t find it on a hip street corner in New York or along the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. It’s a digital museum, composed of your life. Intel’s “Museum of Me” is a social data mining project that takes information from your Facebook page, and molds it into multiple art exhibits based on your social network. It includes some of your friends, pictures of you, and things you’ve posted and linked. I won’t say much more, as I wouldn’t want to ruin the effect, but it is all very stunning once it’s been put together. It’s definitely one of the more impressive things I’ve seen on the internet in quite some time.

I know there have been plenty of people waiting for this game, and now the wait is nearly over. Aliens: Colonial Marines will be shown off next week at E3, with Gearbox Software saying the game will hit store shelves next spring. Gearbox has been at work on this title for seemingly ages, and now we will finally get a glimpse of what the studio has been doing all this time. Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox Software, promises that Aliens: Colonial Marines will be an "interactive successor" to the films and should give gamers one awesome ride when it hits early next year. The game features a single player mode where you battle the xenomorphs as a member of a United States Colonial Marine squad. You will have access to all the classic weaponry from the movies, plus some new items that I am sure we will be able to see next week at E3. There is also a four player co-op mode which should provide for hours of entertainment as each player assumes the role of a Marine to battle the threat.

Aliens: Colonial Marines will hit in the spring of 2012 for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Computex is still going strong, and we have an interesting bit of news from that convention. It seems that OCZ has just set a new world record with one of its solid state drives. The world record consists of 1 million 4K random write IOPS and 1.5 million read IOPS with a Z-Drive R4-equipped 3U Colfax International server that is based on a Supermicro platform. It features 7.2TB of MLC-based storage, so this setup is perfectly suited to large companies. The impressive thing though, is the score that OCZ was able to achieve. This shows that OCZ is more than capable of delivering impressive numbers with its PCIe SSDs for any type of client, be it a huge corporation or an average user looking to speed up their system. The Z-Drive R4 is ideal for enterprise clients dealing with the 4K file size, and Colfax International will be taking pre-orders on the configuration used and others like it during Computex. It is expected to ship a few weeks after Computex wraps.

ARCTIC has announced its entry into the digital home market with its Arctic Living sub brand. The first release is the MC001 series of tiny computers, sometimes referred to as net tops. The four different models should provide something for anyone looking for a small computer, with the difference coming in optical drive and storage choices. It will feature Windows 7 running on a dual core Intel Atom and ATI Mobility Radeon graphics. All models will also feature passive cooling to provide silent operation. I'm looking for a new HTPC, and would love to see how this stacks up against NVIDIA Ion based systems.

Before we get too far here, this is purely theoretical and is meant for supercomputers, not desktops.

We all know that as a computer runs, heat is released, or do we know that? Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have determined that it is possible to have computational processes that produce no heat, or even remove heat! The example they use in the article is the deletion of data. Here comes the science stuff.

In 1961 physicist Rolf Landauer determined that when data is deleted there is an increase in entropy, which is dissipated as heat. Fifty years later it has been theoretically determined that by perfectly knowing the data being deleted, there will be no increase in entropy and no heat. With the quantum-mechanical phenomenon of entanglement it is not only possible for the observer to perfectly know the data but to know it better than perfect, in terms of classical mechanics. With that super-perfect knowledge, deletion of data will result in negative entropy and heat being removed from the system!

Translation: the better you know what you’re deleting, the less heat will be released by deleting it. Quantum entanglement allows you to know the data so well that heat can be removed from the system. Unfortunately, this is working at the edge of the second law of thermodynamics, which states the entropy of the universe never decreases. We cannot break that law.

A new leap has been made in the race to create ever smaller transistors. Chungbuk National University, located in South Korea, has successfully created a 2nm transistor, which is drastically smaller than that of the currently used 32nm transistor. This smaller size would allow for a much higher transistor count in future processors. Such a small size could offer added benefits for mobile computing by allowing a lower power usage and even smaller processing units than are currently available. Such technology could drastically change the current evolution of computing power.

Today's roundup includes several articles covering events and announcements coming out of Computex 2011. In addition to the announcement from Corsair concerning its Carbide series of cases, there is a review of the White Graphite Series 600T mid-tower case from Corsair as well as another look at the Thermaltake V9 BlacX Edition mid-tower gaming case. In motherboards, we have more reviews on boards using the AMD 990FX/SB950 chipset combination as well as one on the MSI Z68A-GD80 Intel motherboard.

Zotac recently launched a pair of Z68 ITX motherboards - Zotac Z68-ITX WiFi and Z68-ITX WiFi Supreme. That's right folks, Z68, not the usual P67 or H67. Of course, being Z68 motherboards you will get features like Lucid Virtu, Intel QuickSync, Intel SRT technology and more. The Supreme variant comes with all the features of the Z68-ITX WiFi with added support for mSATA on the rear of the board, but the real difference is the GeForce GT 430 integrated into the motherboard allowing a builder to use this motherboard in a HTPC without having to buy a dedicated video card.

Sony Corporation and Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) have announced full restoration of PlayStation Network services in the Americas, Europe and Asia(Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea excluded) before the end of this week. This announcement came after more robust security enhancements were implemented to Sony's networks.Â

As a thank you from Sony, customers will be treated to two free games and 30 free days of PlayStation Plus. In addition, 100 free virtual items will be made available from PlayStation Home, as a 'welcome back.'Â

In an effort to make what is decidedly the RPG event of the year even more accessible to PC gamers, CD Projekt has released Patch 1.1 for The Witcher 2.Â

The 1.1 patch removes DRM from all copies of the game worldwide. CD Projekt's Adam Badowski goes on to say that no activation code will be needed, with players able to install and play the game on an unlimited number of PCs.

The patch also addresses framerate and stability issues, and introduces improved DLC installation. "Troll Trouble," the first DLC is included in the patch.Â

Retail users can grab the patch here, on Valve's Steam or on GOG.com for those who bought online. Â

For the better part of the last decade Sandia National Labs, Draper Laboratory and Symmetricom have all worked towards a singular goal. Their aim is to crate a reliable chip-based atomic clock. This goal came about due to the myriad of problems with today's atomic clocks. The atomic clocks used today by various groups such as miners and the military are large, cumbersome, and require the use of GPS signals to work properly.Â The latter of these characteristics is also the most problematic, as a GPS signal might be hard to come by hundreds of yards under the Earth's crust or in an electromagnetically jammed battlefield. Now, after ten years of work, they have released their creation. The result is an atomic clock barely larger than a quarter which consumes a mere 100 milliwatts, a paltry amount compared to the 10 watts consumed by the average atomic clock. The breakthrough technology in this tiny clock is something one might not expect. Using lasers to count atomic pulses, the clock is able to count time to the millionths of seconds.

In an attempt to combat the constantly lurking threat of keyloggers and phishers, researchers at the American University of Beirut have devised a solution. Eschewing the use of modified keyboards, the team has created a way to use key-pattern analysis, the examination of typing style and speed, to thwart online threats. Their exile of custom keyboards has added both ease and affordability into their plan. Along with taking the costly and unnecessary keyboards out of the picture, the team has also come up with a new way of processing keystroke data. Instead of measuring the time between keystrokes, as is the norm, the team has taken the opposite approach. Measuring the time each key is pressed, they have been able to not only produce more concrete data,Â but have also been able to more accurately recognize users. So not only is the program more economically friendly, it is more efficent as well. The team is already marketing the software to businesses, and has stated that the program contains both single user and multi-user profiles.

Last week, D-Wave announced it was ready to sell a quantum computer for commercial use, and itâ€™s now been announced that the companyÂ has already sold its first unit. The honors for breaking in the new device, named the D-Wave One, go to Lockheed Martin, who reportedly purchased the computer for $10 million. However, the company didnâ€™t jump to the decision in the last week. Communications manager Thad Madden said that the the company has spent the last year reviewing the computer before making its decision to buy it. While Lockheed Martin was obviously impressed with the new computer, many experts doubt that the D-Wave One actually works with quantum effects, saying that the company has yet to demonstrate that its quantum computer performs computations any faster than a conventional computer.

For anyone who's played the original Crysis and Crysis Warhead, the graphics options were the most often accessed feature in the settings. These were mysteriously removed from Crysis 2. Crytek remedies this omission by way of Patch 1.8.

Patch 1.8 features added Advanced Graphics Options, a Prematch mode, and Increased default score limits, among others. A number of bug fixes and balance changes round out what is definitely an essential patch for your Crysis 2 gaming fix.

The latest patch, which is now live, can be downloaded from the Official Crysis Community page, or here.

A kidney was apparently a small price to pay for "Zheng", a 17 year old boy from the southen province of Guangdong China.

The boy stumbled upon an advertisement online asking for kidney donors, negotiated the price, and had his kidney removed at a hospital in the city of Chenzhou.

His mother wasn't too pleased with the Apple gear her son brought back after he got paid for the kidney. She promptly dragged Zheng to the police to report the crime, but the agents who oversaw Zheng's operation were nowhere to be found.

The hospital where Zheng had his operation denies any knowledge of the surgery. Zheng, however, has suffered from complications arising from the operation.

During the first day of Computex 2011, G.Skill had a trio of overclockers at its booth to attempt to break a world record. The three overclockers were Shamino, Fredyama, and Young Pro, and all three were attempting to break the Super Pi 32M world record. Succeed they did as they set a Super Pi 32M world record time of five minutes and 32.142 seconds using G.Skill RAM. The RAM the overclockers used was the G.Skill DDR3 2400MHz CL8 4GB PI memory, which the trio had set at 2340MHz and a CL of 6-9-6-25 1T. Their record is the fastest Super Pi 32M time recorded on the latest Intel LGA1155 platform. The rest of the components were an ASUS ROG Maximus IV Extreme and an Intel 2600K CPU. G.Skill is hoping to achieve more world records at Computex, so I am sure we will be hearing more about it as each attempt is made.

The wait is almost over. Duke Nukem Forever, perhaps one of the most famous examples of vaporware, is finally, nearly out. The game will hit the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on June 14th in North America (June 10th in other parts of the world), and people who pre-ordered or bought Borderlands Game of the Year edition will get a demo tomorrow. To whet your appetite for the game, Gearbox Software has released the launch trailer for it. Now, I have to warn you, it is highly not safe for work so I suggest viewing this from the comfort of your home and away from your wife/girlfriend/children. Still, the game does look good and should bring back fond memories of playing the older Duke games. It looks to have the same comedic style the past games had while you're shooting up aliens, so I for one am looking forward to the game.

The Danish firm, Danamics, have taken the next step in finding ways to keep CPUs and GPUs cold. The new Danamics LMX Supperleggera is the second improved version of the original LMX model, which is using liquid metal instead of water to keep the system cool. To reduce the heat development, the liquid metal is being pushed, not by a conventional pump, but by a electromagnetic pump without moving parts. The first LMX wasn't didn't sell well due to its high price, which was about $300, but the the price has now dropped to $200. The cooler is Danamics best shot at the high performance cooling market, and hopes to be one of the preferred solutions when overclockers pick their cooling solution.

Let's see if a small country can compete with the already big and established producers.

NVIDIA has announced the GeForce StarCraft II Pro/Am Tournament, with more than $22,000 in cash and hardware prizes available. The Pro division will feature the top pro players with no entry limit. Amateurs age 16 and over are eligible for the amateur division, also with no entry limit. All matches will be head to head, with at least five weeks of group play. The top players in each group will move to a double elimination tournament. The tournament is being handled by Cevo, and the matches will be cast by Husky and Day9. ASUS will be awarding 20 GeForce 500 series cards to the top pro and amateur players. Official rules and signups can be found here.

A million compromised accounts were made available for download on hacker group LulzSec's website. According to LulzSec, more information about the hacked accounts were available, however they weren't willing to fully post all of it on their website and further claims that these stolen data from Sony was not encrypted. Although the group has been openly mocking Sony's security measures for more than a week in Twitter, LulzSec denies any participation in Sony's security compromise last April, which resulted in 77 million user accounts left vulnerable to breach.

The Chinese goverment have vehemently denied that Chinese hackers were behind the security breach of hundreds of Gmail accounts, including those of top U.S. government officials. A phishing campaign was allegedly used by hackers to deceive Gmail users into disclosing passwords, allowing the culprits to monitor email traffic. Chinese officials have mentioned that they are fully opposed to any cyber criminal activities and will cooperate with the international community to combat cyber threats, but that the blame against China was baseless and filled with an ulterior motive. Reports indicate that the attacks seemed to originate from the Lanxiang Vocational School in Jinan, where Chinese computer scientists are being trained for the military. The FBI is currently working with the White House National Security Council following Google's announcement of the breach.

Fahmi Fadzil, a social activist has been forced to say sorry for a tweet falsely claiming that his pregnant friend was ill treated by her magazine employers. Although Fadzil withdrew his accusation shortly after he made the claim, he promptly received a legal letter from the magazine company's lawyers. Despite escaping a hefty fine, Fadzil has been ordered to apologize on Twitter 100 times over a period of three days, which is until June 4. This settlement was reached in an out-of-court agreement with the claimant. Given that Fadzil has 5,066 followers to date, this number is expected to increase exponentially as his case continues to be broadcasted across the web. Fadzil's apology must contain the following: I’ve DEFAMED Blu Inc Media & Female Magazine. My tweets on their HR Policies are untrue. I retract those words & hereby apologize.

It looks like a busy day on the review front with lots of articles from around the web, especially when you factor in all the coverage from Computex 2011. We picked up another review on the In Win BUC mid-tower case. In the gaming arena, there are reviews covering Dirt 3 for the PC, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and an indie game titled Project Zomboid. Over in cooling, our roundup includes a look at Thermaltake's Jing CPU cooler. There is also a pair of HIS Radeon HD 6000-series cards reviewed as well as a GeForce 580 GTX card from MSI.

You have to hand it to Lara Croft. She's been through quite a rollercoaster in her 15-year video game career and yet she's still just as resilient as when we first saw her with her dual pistols in the original Tomb Raider(1996). Unfortunately, her most recent outings haven't quite lived up to the high standards of her earlier games.

Crystal Dynamics hopes to turn all this around with their upcoming Lara Croft reboot, with our heroine marooned on an island armed with nothing but her wits and her will to survive. The reboot aims to ignite a level of intensity beyond the previous games, and if the trailer is any indication, they're on the right track. Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope Lara survives this adventure.

Thermaltake's Tt eSPORTS division has announced the official launch of its Tt eSPORTS Challenge, or "TeC" for short. Prompted by the resurgence of competitive gaming, Thermaltake has unveiled tournaments in two high profile games. The first heavy hitter of its lineup is "StarCraft II", an icon in PC gaming, followed by Riot Games' "League of Legends". Both amateur and professional gamers will be invited to compete in single and double elimination tournaments for various prizes, including gaming gear and cash sums. The tournaments announced will each last one month, with prize pools set at $3,000 and $1,500. So far, opening dates for both of these tournaments remain unannounced. As well,Â Tt eSPORTS has pledged to introduce more of these events as time goes on.

Earlier this week, Google reported that hundreds of Gmail accounts were compromised as a result of phishing attacks against the site. It now appears that in addition to the Gmail attacks, attempts have been made to steal the login information of users of both Yahoo mail and Microsoft’s Hotmail service. While these attacks have happened in close proximity, it is currently believed that the Yahoo and Hotmail attacks were separately conducted from the Gmail attacks earlier this week. The goal of the attacks in the Google breach was to gain login information so the hackers could add their own email addresses to the forwarding settings. It’s not clear at this point how many accounts on either service have been compromised, if any, but if you use either of these services it might be a good idea to change your password and check your forwarding settings.

Dubbed by Asus as the Republic of Gamers G53SX Naked Eye 3D, this laptop is touted by the company as the world's first glasses-free 3D laptop. Armed with an Intel Core i7 CPU, a Geforce GTX 560M GPU with 2GB of DDR5 VRAM, and a Z68 motherboard, the 3D technology appears to be ably backed up. Initial reports suggest that 3D is achieved using specialized software that allows on-the-fly conversion of 2D images into a 3D-like experience without the glasses. According to Asus the technology works with dozens of game titles and multimedia content. Aesthically, the latest Republic of Gamers laptop retains that sleek stealth fighter exterior with a backlit keyboard geared specifically towards performance-oriented gamers. Cooling wise the laptop boasts twin fans from the case's front to pull in cool air and twin rear exhausts to discharge warm air. If Asus plays its cards right, this might just be our chance to jump in on the 3D bandwagon without having to wear those retro 3D glasses.

Researchers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute have performed a study of 110 popular non-online social networking (non-OSN) sites (eg. not Facebook) and 10 OSNs, finding 56% directly leak private information to third parties. That number increases to 75% if you count userids as private information. The information is often leaked to third party aggregators that may attempt to track you, to better deliver advertisements, for example. The leaking of information is not the only point of concern though, as linkage of the information is also possible. Consistently using a userid (I am “Guest_Jim_*” or “GuestJim” most everywhere, for example) or an email address on the Internet can allow apparently distinct information to be linked together, forming a single identity online. With enough information a globally unique identifier (GUID) can be made to track you even if you use separate logins for separate access points (work vs. home).
They examined 12 categories and created this table of when information is leaked (found in Privacy leakage vs. Protection measures: the growing disconnect along with explanations of what is leaked at each action):

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have devised a new method to create biochemical circuits with synthetic DNA that allows for larger circuits than previously created. A very important point of this new technique is that the DNA molecules, comparable to electronic transistors, are fully programmable! To demonstrate this method, the researchers created a circuit using 74 different DNA molecules, the largest they have made, to calculate the square root of any number up to 15 (or 1111 in binary) and then round that value down to the nearest integer. Just input a number less than fifteen, as a molecule of DNA, wait for about 10 hours, and you’ll have your answer.

The goal of research into DNA computers, like this, is not to replace electronics, but to learn more about life, by, hopefully, one day making a biochemical system as complex as life itself. So no, you cannot play Crysis on it.

When comparing the success and responses of participants in two different weight-loss programs, Indiana University Researchers made an interesting discovery. One of the programs involved traditional health club sessions while the other operated online in 3D virtual environments. Both programs resulted in similar losses to weight and body fat, but the online program also saw the adoption of behaviors to promote a healthier life style. The traditional program, with face-to-face interaction, saw no significant increase in such behaviors. The participants in the online program also reported an increased sense of confidence in their physical abilities.It is worth noting that the online component of the program consisted of seminars to teach the participants, and the actual weight-loss activities would have been away from the keyboard.

E3 is still a few day's away, but that isn't stopping a powerhouse like Konami from teasing a few things. There isn't a whole lot in the way of new IPs being announced at Konami's pre-E3 press conference, but what is there is sure to please many people. Games like Contra, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, and one little title known as Zone of the Enders were shown off at the press conference. Up first is Silent Hill, which in addition to having the eigth installment, Downpour, there will be a new title for Sony's NGP titled Book of Memories. There will also be an HD collection of the first two games, though neither it nor the NGP title got a solid release date. Metal Gear Solid will also be getting an HD collection, with MGS2, MGS3, and MGS: Peace Walker bundled together for the PS3. Curiously the first MGS game isn't included, and since it is a PS1 title, perhaps there were some issues getting it ready in time. Speaking of HD collections, the two Zone of the Enders games will get bundled together, upgraded to high definition, and released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 next year.

Lastly, a new Contra title was teased though very little is known about it. The video shown by Konami simply was a flaming "C" with the words "they're coming." Cryptic for sure, but at least a new Contra is in the works. The final tease was from the MGS mastermind Hideo Kojima, though basically nothing is known about his new game. We do know he's working on an unannounced title and uses a new game engine called Fox Engine. It looks mighty impressive, so hopefully we will get more details on what game will be using it soon. You can view the entire Konami press conference here, while the embedded video below is of Kojima's Fox Engine.

Possibly the most anticipated new game coming out this year is the one from id Software, Rage. I've been following Rage ever since it was announced and have been reading every bit of news on the game. In case you don't know, its a post-apocalyptic first-person shooter from the studio that brought you Doom and Quake, but Rage is different from those two. Instead of being confined indoors, Rage lets you explore an open world, partake in quests, shoot bad guys, and even drive a dune buggy. The game is slated for a September 13th release, so we have just a few short months to go before we can get out hands on the game. Today, a new gameplay trailer has emerged showcasing the player helping a town called Wellspring. The town relies on a system of wells beneath it to supply fresh water, and a bandit menance is threatening to poison the water supply. It is up to you to put a stop to the bandits and save the town, and the footage makes me eagerly anticipate the game's release.

Rage is set to launch on September 13th for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

This is good news for anyone with a PS3 or PSP, as Sony is announcing its "Welcome Back" program is now live. The program is for anyone who had a PSN account before the outage occured, so if you got set up with an account by April 20th, 2011, you are in luck. PS3 owners will be able to choose two games from a list of five while PSP owners get to choose two games from a list of four. If you happen to own both a PS3 and a PSP, then you will get four games in total which should please many people. The PS3 games are: inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Nation, Super Stardust HD, and Wipeout HD/Fury. The PSP games are: LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, Killzone Liberation, and Pursuit Force. To get your game, simply go to the PS Store on the PS3 or PSP, click on the Welcome Back portion, and select your first game. Once you have it downloading, do the same procedure for the second game. European PS3/PSP owners get a slightly different selection, but still, the same method applies for them.

You can also get 30 days free of PlayStation Plus in the Welcome Back section, and once the 30 days are up, it simply expires and does not auto-renew. You can, of course, purchase PS+ on your own afterwards, but Sony is leaving that entirely up to you. Current PS+ members will get an additional 60 days added on to their service, which requires no action on your part as Sony is doing that automatically. There will be 100 items added to PlayStation Home for every PSN user which should help to appease the people unable to access it during the outage. There will also be a selection of free movie rentals to choose from this weekend only, the only stipulation for that is you must have video service in your country. Finally, current Music Unlimited Premium members will get an additional 30 days added on to their subscription.

When the NASA shuttle Endeavor landed, it helped a woman discover that her car was being stolen. When the spacecraft land, they produce loud sonic booms due to the very high speeds at which they are traveling. During the landing, this series of sonic booms woke a woman in Florida, who then looked out of her window. She saw two men inside of her car who then ran off and into another car. After calling the police, the men were found and charged with burglary. This was the last mission for the shuttle Endeavor, as it will be decommissioned and then sent to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The other shuttles will also be decommissioned and sent to various museums for the public to view and enjoy up close.

Everyone likes to think that their passwords are uncrackable. However, if programs like "ighashgpu", a free password cracking tool, are any indication, all your passwords might be just about as useful as an ice cube in the Arctic. Ighashgpu uses a computer's GPU instead of its CPU to run password guesses. While this may seem unimportant, GPUs have been shown to crack passwords at mind boggling speeds compared to a standard CPU. Even long passwords involving upper and lowercase letters as well as symbols quickly fall victim to the too when running GPU guesses. Still, that's not even the scary part. Your most well thought out passwords could become worthless against even a low-end GPU. For the exact numbers, check here. You may find yourself more than a little surprised and a lot more conscious of how vulnerable you really are.

Kingston today announced that it has partnered with SandForce to produce its first SandForce-based SSD, named the HyperXSSD. The newSSD features the SandForce SF-2281 controller which supports the SATA 6Gb/s interface. The HyperXSSD offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 525MB/s and 480MB/s respectively, and up to 40,000/60,000 IOPS (sustained random 4K read/write). Other features include SandForce'sDuraClass technology for increased reliability and performance, advanced wear-leveling technology, TRIM/SMART support and Intel 25nm compute NAND (P/E 5K) flash memory.

Ariel Perez, SSD business manager at Kingston said that "theSandForce controller allows us to deliver the high-end performance that is needed for power-users, gamers, and enthusiasts. Integrating a final production quality controller and firmware, and undergoing extensive testing has been an exacting process, but well worth the wait. By pairing SandForce's latest controller with Intel 25nm compute NAND (P/E 5K), we have built an SSD that meets the requirements set by true enthusiasts."

The HyperXSSD will be available in 120GB and 240GB variants, both backed by a three-year warranty. Kingston did not release any details regarding the availability or pricing of the HyperXSSD.

Spire today unveiled its latest CPU cooler, dubbed the Swirl. The Swirl has a unique cylindrical design comprising of 45 all-directional aluminum fins, supported by a copper base and three 8mm copper heat pipes. The Swirl is designed to cool CPUs with power outputs of up to 150W, and includes a nine-blade cooling fan complete with red LEDs. The fan speed can be adjusted between 800 and 2000RPM using the included PCI controller. A dark nickel coating is included to protect the heat sink from oxidation. The Swirl CPU cooler supports Intel's 1155, 1156, and 1366 sockets and AMD's AM2/AM3 sockets. The Swirl will be backed by a five-year warranty. Spire did not disclose details regarding the pricing or availability of the Swirl.

Specs-wise, the Gigabyte M2432 laptop shown at Computex 2011 wasn't any different from most mid-range laptops out there: Core i5-2410M (2.3 to 2.9Ghz) CPU, 14inch 1366x768 LCD, 4GB DDR3, 500GB 7200rpm hard drive, a DVD burner that can be swapped with a secondary battery, and an Intel HD Graphics 3000 on-board graphic processor. However, this unassuming laptop's claim to fame is that it can be paired with its own own well-equipped expansion dock that has a desktop-class NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 1GB RAM GPU, which has the potential to turn the laptop into a decent entry-level gaming machine for people on the go. Pricing and availability have yet to be announced, although we sure wouldn't mind seeing how well this baby runs on modern games.

Remember your notebook or notepad? That book of blank pages you use to take down notes back in college and high school. Singapore appears to be ready to move forward with a paperless classroom and turn the notebook by way of the typewriter: a thing of the past. The iPad's appeal as a learning tool is quite undeniable; there's no need for a pen, no heavy books or notebooks to carry around in a kids' bulky school bag. Everything a student needs to learn can be packed into the slim glass tablet. In fact, iPads costing over $100,000 were given to teachers and students from Nanyang Girls' High School in Singapore for a trial run. It is estimated that every student in the school will be sporting an iPad by 2013. With Singapore's competitive education system, the iPad as a learning tool is rapidly becoming the device of choice among many Singaporeans. However, the downside is that students might use the iPad for frequent sessions of Facebook or Twitter, instead of reading up on that installed Biology or Algebra ebook. Despite this, the push towards incorporating new technologies into education continues, and perhaps soon students will be wondering just how we managed to learn using cumbersome tools like the notepad.

Steam has been dominating the digital distribution of games for a long time now, and only recently has Microsoft announced that it will open its own digital distribution service. But now a second competitor has announced its arrival. EA has revealed that it is going to start its own digital download service with more than 150 games available to purchase at launch. It's also going to be the only place to buy Star Wars: The Old Republic digitally, when it's out. It will be possible to fetch friend lists from web sites such as Facebook. Users can create their own profile page to keep track of progress in their games and will have some of the same social tools as Steam. Origin, as EA calls the service, plans to spread to smartphones in the future.

Copenhagen Suborbitals, a non-profit Danish organization, has created something once believed to be impossible for such a group. After a test launching on June 4th, the organization has a working homemade space capsule. Designed to carry a single tourist into space, the device is quite small compared to an average NASA rocket, but in reality is one of the largest ever built by a non-government group. Plans for the rocket include tours into "space", the 62.5 mile mark above the Earth's surface. The rockets would then fall back to Earth using a parachute system. This goal is far off for now; the rocket has only just hit the ten mile mark. Even so, this last test flight shows that progress is taking great strides.

This alarm clock is sure to burn a hole in your pocket. If you can't find enough motivation to wake up to work, this might just do the trick for you. This alarm clock shreds through any bills you're willing to place inside this death trap, although it would probably be a good idea to start with smaller bills. The gadget appears more like a novelty item though, and not an actual product. A caveat: it is a criminal offense for U.S. citizens to willingly destroy any type of U.S. currency and you can be fined up to $100 or jailed for 6 months, so you better just wake up before this clock does.

France announced that it has banned on-air announcers from using the words "Facebook" and "Twitter" among others. The thinking towards this decision, while seemingly inane, is actually the opposite. Intellectuals are the ones who came up with the ban, and for a seemingly good reason. Basically, the French believe that the websites are using the endorsement of televised personalities in order to gain free advertising, which in turn leads to more endorsement and even more free advertising. The belief stands that this is a cycle which grants social networking sites unlimited marketing at almost no cost to themselves as long as they remain free. Thus, the French have banned these names on-air to combat the sites' ever-growing influence. However, this is something you'll have to make up your own mind about, not something backed with concrete facts.

Whoever's idea it is to tie these compelling bits and pieces of information to The Dark Knight Rises, they know how to tease just enough snippets to get us all worked up for the latest Batman movie. This time we're treated to scenes of chaos in what appears to be Gotham City, courtesy of Youtube. We're also given a link to a Facebook page for The Fire Rises, which doesn't have anything on it yet but is already being feasted on by rabid fans. Watch the videos and tell us if it's the real deal.